Noisy Nexus 3000

fetaost · Post by **fetaost** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 11:12 am

The noisiest part in my computer is my Nexus PSU. It's a whooshing sound which makes me crazy when trying to sleep in the same room. I've 'remounted' the stock fan with rubber things (http://www.gtek.se/img_prod/efs.jpg) and that help a bit. I used a dremel to cut out the grill but that didn't make any difference in noise.
Has anybody replaced the fan for a Panaflo L1A? Should I use the original fan wires or connect it to the ordinary lines and a fan control?
Any other ideas? Decoupling the whole PSU?

ASUS A78NX, AMD 2500+, ALPHA PLA8045, 2 Arctic Cooling TC1 fans (CPU/case), 2 suspended Barraucdas, Gf2 MX w/o fan. + some pci-cards.

I really loved my Amiga...

Storm · Post by **Storm** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 12:58 pm

i recently bought a nexus 3000 as well and i found the ball bearing fan was loud, so i bought my self a soldering iron and soldered the old fan from my Q-technology 300w (hydro bearing fan).

Although the grinding ball bearing noise is now gone, i hear the whooshing noise. This noise is caused by turbulence from the air flowing through the small stamped vents at the back of the PSU (the end opposite the fan). I have heard that people have cut or bent 90° the stamped vents which helps lower the whooshing sound

fetaost · Post by **fetaost** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 1:16 pm

Can anyone who has tried to do anything about the tall vents recommend it? It's quite a lot of work and I don't want to do it in vain. There's a lot of stuff right behind the fan and it seems more likely that these are the problem. Maybe I should remove them.

Has anyone put the fan on the outside of the psu? Did it help?

DryFire · Post by **DryFire** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 2:28 pm

are you thinking about a shroud fetaost?

it might be worth the effort.

fetaost · Post by **fetaost** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 2:53 pm

For the moment I can't remember what a shroud is. (I'm a stupid swede.

I meant just moving the psu fan from inside om the psu to the outside to get som space between the fan and the components.

DryFire · Post by **DryFire** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 3:39 pm

that's exactly what a shroud does. but it's usually used on a radiator. i guess it would be more of a duct.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 2:27 am

ill post this here instead of starting a new thread, sorry if its a bit off topic.

For everyone that thinks the nexus is loud because of the fan noise (not the air turbulence). The nexus PSU mike reviewed had a different fan the MGA8012HB. The nexus PSU i bought from quietpc.com has a MGA8012HS-A in it. My nexus has a sleeve bearing instead of a ball bearing, although u would think the sleeve was quieter...

I guess when it comes to these silent PSU's its better to buy one quick before they change the design.

fetaost · Post by **fetaost** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 2:41 am

So the sleeve bearing version makes more noise than the ball bearing nexus?

Storm · Post by **Storm** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 3:50 am

A sleeve bearing fan undervolted is usually quieter than a ball bearing at the same speed, atleast thats what i have found with all my fans.

but in mike's review of the fan in his nexus

The 29 dBA rating is lower than most similar fans. Listening with the PSU on idle, I can say that airflow noise is present, but bearing noise is virtually absent. It has a smooth, even sound.

i think the cfm of both fans are the same, so the airflow noise might be the same

cliche · Post by **cliche** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 11:11 am

Storm wrote:
I guess when it comes to these silent PSU's its better to buy one quick before they change the design.

Nope - I bought a Seasonic 400 APFC for £104 GBP and then 2 weeks later the Super Silencer comes out - i was NOT happy

herosformula · Post by **herosformula** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 8:22 am

Have you tried opening the front of the computer case to see if the amount of noise drops? My nexus is extremely sensitive to pressure impedance.

fetaost · Post by **fetaost** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 12:42 pm

So it would benefit from positive air pressure in the case?

Now I have 1 intake in front and the cpu air is ducted out back. The cpu fan spinns faster which should make my case pressure negative, even without the psu. Anyway I've can't hear any improvment when removing the case sidepanels.

haral · Post by **haral** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 1:25 pm

I'm planning on putting the fan outside the case. But I noticed that there is somekind of yellow thing attached to the fan. Now because I don't know what it is and because it is attached to the power switch I don't want to touch it before somebody says to me what it is and how much power it has.

Any thoughts? And it's true that with positive air pressure the nexus is more quiet. And I have cutted out half of the air vents but it didn't help that much that it would be worth of it.

fetaost · Post by **fetaost** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 1:35 pm

haral wrote: And I have cutted out half of the air vents but it didn't help that much that it would be worth of it.

Thanx Haral! You saved me a lot of trouble.

And I wonder if that yellow thing will be a problem if I try to install a panaflo instead...

herosformula · Post by **herosformula** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 2:34 pm

I do not know about positive or negative air flow, just flow restrictions. Offhand, I would say that a large amount of either would increase noise.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 4:44 am

I had my Nexus 3000 running in a case with completely negative air pressure (120mm L1A exhaust fan only) and never had any wierd noise from it.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Fri Nov 21, 2003 12:49 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:I had my Nexus 3000 running in a case with completely negative air pressure (120mm L1A exhaust fan only) and never had any wierd noise from it.

Is there any particular reason you switched from the Nexus 3000 to the Seasonic SS 400? Since you've had both products, can you relate to me your perception of the noise difference?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 4:39 am

JVM wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:I had my Nexus 3000 running in a case with completely negative air pressure (120mm L1A exhaust fan only) and never had any wierd noise from it.
Is there any particular reason you switched from the Nexus 3000 to the Seasonic SS 400? Since you've had both products, can you relate to me your perception of the noise difference?

The SS400 originally was an impulse purchse (it was sitting on the shelf at Fry's flirting with me). I tried it against my Nexus 3000 and it was noticeably quieter (less air noise. IIRC, the Nexus had no mechanical or electrical noise and neither does the SS400) so I kept it. Since then I've bought 2 more SS 400's for my other systems. the other two are just as quiet as the first.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 5:30 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:
JVM wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:I had my Nexus 3000 running in a case with completely negative air pressure (120mm L1A exhaust fan only) and never had any wierd noise from it.
Is there any particular reason you switched from the Nexus 3000 to the Seasonic SS 400? Since you've had both products, can you relate to me your perception of the noise difference?
The SS400 originally was an impulse purchse (it was sitting on the shelf at Fry's flirting with me). I tried it against my Nexus 3000 and it was noticeably quieter (less air noise. IIRC, the Nexus had no mechanical or electrical noise and neither does the SS400) so I kept it. Since then I've bought 2 more SS 400's for my other systems. the other two are just as quiet as the first.

You must have a good job. When Arnold finds out about guys like you, up goes the State sales tax.

I'm just going to order one Seasonic SS400 - and thanks for your input.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 10:49 am

JVM wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:
JVM wrote: Is there any particular reason you switched from the Nexus 3000 to the Seasonic SS 400? Since you've had both products, can you relate to me your perception of the noise difference?
The SS400 originally was an impulse purchse (it was sitting on the shelf at Fry's flirting with me). I tried it against my Nexus 3000 and it was noticeably quieter (less air noise. IIRC, the Nexus had no mechanical or electrical noise and neither does the SS400) so I kept it. Since then I've bought 2 more SS 400's for my other systems. the other two are just as quiet as the first.
You must have a good job. When Arnold finds out about guys like you, up goes the State sales tax.

I'm just going to order one Seasonic SS400 - and thanks for your input.

We already pay 8.25% state sales tax and have one of the highest personal income tax rates in the nation. The don't call it "The Peolpes Republik of Kalifornia" for no good reason.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 11:08 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:
JVM wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote: The SS400 originally was an impulse purchse (it was sitting on the shelf at Fry's flirting with me). I tried it against my Nexus 3000 and it was noticeably quieter (less air noise. IIRC, the Nexus had no mechanical or electrical noise and neither does the SS400) so I kept it. Since then I've bought 2 more SS 400's for my other systems. the other two are just as quiet as the first.
You must have a good job. When Arnold finds out about guys like you, up goes the State sales tax.

I'm just going to order one Seasonic SS400 - and thanks for your input.
We already pay 8.25% state sales tax and have one of the highest personal income tax rates in the nation. The don't call it "The Peolpes Republik of Kalifornia" for no good reason.

Things can't be that bad if you guys in Kalifornia with the high electric bills, high sales tax, high personal income tax, and high trees can afford to buy 3 Seasonic Super Silencers and put them in 3 different systems. Just wait until Arnold finds out about you guys and then he'll understand why Davis was screwing around - Davis was only trying to get rid of excess money.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 6:18 am

JVM wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:
JVM wrote:You must have a good job. When Arnold finds out about guys like you, up goes the State sales tax.

I'm just going to order one Seasonic SS400 - and thanks for your input.
We already pay 8.25% state sales tax and have one of the highest personal income tax rates in the nation. The don't call it "The Peolpes Republik of Kalifornia" for no good reason.
Things can't be that bad if you guys in Kalifornia with the high electric bills, high sales tax, high personal income tax, and high trees can afford to buy 3 Seasonic Super Silencers and put them in 3 different systems. Just wait until Arnold finds out about you guys and then he'll understand why Davis was screwing around - Davis was only trying to get rid of excess money.

There's no way I could affor to buy any of the computer hardware I buy if I was trying to do it with the money I earn from my primary job. All that heavily taxed money goes towards all the normal living expenses.

My computer hobby is supported by the income from my second job, which is building computer systems and general computer repair.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 6:41 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:
JVM wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote: We already pay 8.25% state sales tax and have one of the highest personal income tax rates in the nation. The don't call it "The Peolpes Republik of Kalifornia" for no good reason.
Things can't be that bad if you guys in Kalifornia with the high electric bills, high sales tax, high personal income tax, and high trees can afford to buy 3 Seasonic Super Silencers and put them in 3 different systems. Just wait until Arnold finds out about you guys and then he'll understand why Davis was screwing around - Davis was only trying to get rid of excess money.
There's no way I could affor to buy any of the computer hardware I buy if I was trying to do it with the money I earn from my primary job. All that heavily taxed money goes towards all the normal living expenses.

My computer hobby is supported by the income from my second job, which is building computer systems and general computer repair.

Sure wish I had your expertise in building systems. Right now I've got a room full of parts waiting to be assembled. I just have one more part to get and that will take a few weeks - I'm waiting for the new Nexus 120mm case fan to become available. Once I have all the pieces. then I can go about putting it all together and setting the house on fire.

I would like to make a restoration disc using my CD burner and wonder if you have any suggestions as to what utility to use? Norton Ghost?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 7:00 am

JVM wrote:I would like to make a restoration disc using my CD burner and wonder if you have any suggestions as to what utility to use? Norton Ghost?

Personally, I use Drive Image (pre DI-7), it's the most usfull program I've ever used. I can't imagine not having imagies to backup to if (or when

) one of my mad experiments goes awry.

Ghost works great too, but it's GUI is a little less intuative than DI, plus until just recently you couldn't backup an NTFS partition to another NTFS partition, but they've fixed that now.

If I couldn't find a pre-Drive Image 7.0 (DI2002 or DI 5.0) version I'd go with Ghost right now. DI7 has taken a big step backwards in functionality compared to the previous versions, and the company that makes it (Powerquest) has recently been bought by Symantec anyway so there will probably be no further development to DI. Why should they when they already have Ghost?

johnc · Post by **johnc** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 9:08 am

I agree with Ralf about Drive Image and Ghost. Both can be used successfully, but Drive Image is a bit friendlier.

I use Drive Image 5.0 on my Windows 98 machines. They have floppy drives. This allows Rescue Environment access using two floopy disks created for that purpose. Works like a charm.

My laptop running Windows XP Pro has no floppy drive. With Drive Image 7.0, Disaster Recovery is carried out from an environment reached by booting from the Drive Image installation CD-ROM, which neatly sidesteps the floppy drive issue. NTFS partitions are natively supported.

The critical part of this process is not Ghost vs Drive Image, but the choice of a backup site. I have been using DataPort removable hard drive modules. I use 5400 RPM hard drives in them, running fanless, and they work fine. After a backup, I just pull them out of the machine. One all-computers master copy get taken off site periodically.

Sometimes I think this is overkill, but I have original research data from years of work on disk, irreplaceable stuff. A natural disaster, fire or theft would just have terrible consequences.

I had not heard about the Symantec purchase of PowerQuest. As Ralf suggests, this probably signals the end of a nice product line. This acquisition may result in a friendlier Ghost, though.

John Coyle

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 11:32 am

johnc wrote:
I had not heard about the Symantec purchase of PowerQuest. As Ralf suggests, this probably signals the end of a nice product line. This acquisition may result in a friendlier Ghost, though.

John Coyle

"Symantec to Acquire Powerquest".

I'm pretty bummed too. It's kind of like MS buying up some little company to suck the juice out of their bones, then spit them out. Symantecs had a history of doing this same kind of thing too. (FWIW, I'm not the biggest Symantec fan, except for NAV

)